Sequestration could lead to the loss of summer services from interpretive programs to routine maintenance at the popular national park.

Mar. 4, 2013

A man cast his line in Sprague Lake at Rocky Mountain National Park on July 27, 2011. The park stands to lose more than $600,000 in federal funding this year due to the automatic budget cuts commonly called sequestration. / V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan

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If you’re climbing Long’s Peak this summer and you fall and injure yourself, it could take longer for help to reach you than it did in previous years.

If you’re trying to reach Grand Lake via Trail Ridge Road this spring or fall, it could take longer for the road to reopen after it’s temporarily closed by late or early-season snowstorms because plow drivers won’t be paid to clear the highway.

If you’re among the thousands of tourists looking for a campsite in Rocky Mountain National Park, closed campground gates could greet you at the entrance.

If you and your kids are looking forward to one of the thousands of ranger-led walks and talks at the park this year, many may not occur at all.

This is how the federal sequester will affect Rocky Mountain National Park in the coming months as park officials eliminate $623,200 — about 5 percent — from the park’s operating budget.

If that cut becomes permanent, visitor services and the protection of the park itself could be slashed even more.

“What visitors will certainly see in Rocky Mountain National Park based on sequestration is going to be completely cumulative,” park spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said Monday. “Visitors will hopefully not see a lot of impacts in a couple of months. If this becomes six months, nine months, a year, we’re going to be doing less with less.”

For the coming summer, visitors can expect major reductions in seasonal staffing at the park, reducing its ability to provide interpretive programs such as ranger talks and conduct regular maintenance within the park, Patterson said.

Search and rescue operations will be reduced because there will be fewer available seasonal rangers to respond to incidents, she said.

“We on average have about 230 incidents a year,” Patterson said. “Our hope would be we could still respond in a timely manner. When you have people spread more thin and you don’t have as many rangers with that skill set out there, then your response time could be a little bit slower.”

Wildland firefighting capability at the drought-stricken park will not be affected, she said.

The Moraine Park Visitor Center will not open this year, affecting the 140,000 people who visit the visitor center annually. The park’s other visitor centers will have reduced hours.

Glacier Basin Campground, already expected to be closed for part of the summer because of road construction, will remain closed the entire summer.

If the sequester cuts are permanent or stretch into 2014, many additional visitor services are likely to be cut and the National Park Service’s ability to protect the the natural resources within the park could be compromised, Patterson said.

Many of the park’s five campgrounds could be closed if the sequester lasts through next year, she said.

“Normally, our demand exceeds supply,” she said. “If we were to not reopen campgrounds next year, the impacts are going to be cumulative.”